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3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

bbc.co.uk

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Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#131

Post by rjf72 »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #52
paraschopra wrote: post #8

The concept of species is a construct of language.

Members of the same species can procreate fertile offspring. In some edge cases this definition becomes a little fuzzy, but it is clearly more than just a linguistic construct. A mouse and an elephant won't be able to procreate even if the word "species" didn't exist.

It's true the same species implies fertile offspring, but it does not go the other way as you seem to be implying. In other words fertile offspring does not imply same species. For some examples, chihuahuas and wolves can produce fertile offspring, as can lions/tigers, killer whales/dolphins, and many more peculiar pairings.

It's quite difficult to pin down a precise definition for species. Even genetic definitions don't work so well. Depending on how it is measured chimps hit around 99% genetic similarity with humans. Nature isn't so kind as to provide clean and concrete delineations for us, at least not that we're currently capable of measuring.

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#132

Post by whowhatwhy »

the_af wrote: post #129
whowhatwhy wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

way to do a lot of arguing without actually arguing about anything substantive, A+

What did I miss? I argued that: - The author of TFA is not a subject matter expert. - He relies on the opinions of people known to hold fringe, debunked opinions on the subject matter, like Stephen Meyer. - Said people belong to the Discovery Institute, known to promote religion as science. - It is a pointless exercise for the scientific community to engage with crackpots and people dishonest about their actual goals…

- It is a pointless exercise for the scientific community to engage with crackpots and people dishonest about their actual goals (e.g. promoting religious views, fighting atheism, whatever it is they believe they are doing).

You haven't touched on one single aspect of any of the actual ideas being discussed. All you've offered is ad hominem attacks on the purveyors of the ideas.

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#133

Post by [deleted] »

cro0o wrote: post #108

Sure, this isn’t a popular opinion around here but I find all of these theories such nonsense. Creationism, to me, is a lot kore logical than a random big bang - fast fwd apes / fast fwd humans. So many random events with hardly any logic attached to it. Humans have grown to be so full of themselves, especially in this tech age, where a lot of us find it hard to believe there’s a more intelligent being out there that…

[deleted]

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#134

Post by ses1984 »

ravenstine wrote: post #123
ses1984 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit more specific actually: this thing can't mate with that thing and produce viable offspring.

In practice, that is often not the case. Most species haven't been tested to see whether they can produce viable offspring with each other(it's usually impractical), and there are plenty of different species known to breed successfully with one another. Mules, horse-donkey hybrids, while the vast majority of them are infertile, are considered different species. Camels and Llamas can produce viable offspring even thou…

Most species don't really need to be tested because their chromosomes are different enough to make it obvious their offspring would be infertile, right?

Of course if hybrids are infertile they would be considered different species.

If hybrids are fertile, like your example of camels and llamas, then according to what reason would they be considered the same species? Did their evolution diverge and then reconverge?

I guess it depends on your definition of "often".

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#135

Post by subsaharancoder »

BurningFrog wrote: post #105
not_a_cop75 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it wrong to believe at this point that instead of macro evolution, we could be looking at several differing extinction points?

I think the point is that we know so little that we might look at a huge number of wildly different scenarios. So... keep digging!

Or..that we need more faith to believe in evolution than to believe in creation

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#136

Post by Steko »

throw0101a wrote: post #46

How do {archaeologists?, paleoanthropologists?} even know where to look for these things? "There's a whole bunch of land, let's dig... [throws dart at map] here."

This skull was found by a goat herder, albeit a paleontology enthusiast, while digging a goat pen:

At the time, an expedition co-led by Haile-Selassie was digging at Woranso-Mille, a field site in Ethiopia’s Afar region less than three miles from Miro Dora, where Bereino was herding. According to Haile-Selassie, Bereino had tried for years to get himself hired on Haile-Selassie’s team. He sometimes claimed that fossils emerged from eroded rock; when Haile-Selassie had visited in the past, he hadn’t see any.

On this particular day, Bereino was digging an addition to a temporary goat pen when he noticed a bone exposed in the sandstone surface. Bereino got in touch with a local government official, who agreed that it might be something Haile-Selassie would find interesting.

When the official called Haile-Selassie, he remained skeptical, replying that Bereino should mark where he found the fossil and walk it over to his camp. When Bereino and the official arrived, Haile-Selassie soon realized the magnitude of the find. Bereino had found a maxilla, or upper jawbone, belonging to an ancient hominin.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/08/unprecede...

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#137

Post by gnulinux »

craigsmansion wrote: post #35
siempreb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean we are a very different species, we have not evolved from apes, nor have apes evolved from fish. It is an idiot theory that doesn't serve us at all. These apes are not our ancestors fortunately, we are very fortunate to be real humans. I believe all species DNA are designed by our true ancestors. Imagine what is possible if technology evolves another 1000 years what we would be capable of! And it is incredibly…

So our DNA is engineered and then bestowed upon us by some sort of Promethean figure. Someone should make a movie about this!

I know you're probably joking, but in case you're not, this is the plot of prequels to the Alien franchise (i.e. Prometheus et al)

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#138

Post by 8bitsrule »

Yajirobe wrote: post #81
polymatter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They found the bone in the rock. Scientists look at the rock and can tell the rocks age. They assume that the bone is about the same age as the rock it was found inside.

And how did they determine the age of the rock?

This may be as close to ELI5 as it can be. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#139

Post by bigbluedots »

subsaharancoder wrote: post #135
BurningFrog wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that we know so little that we might look at a huge number of wildly different scenarios. So... keep digging!

Or..that we need more faith to believe in evolution than to believe in creation

Maybe, but creation has zero evidence in its favor

Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

#140

Post by posterboy »

TBurette wrote: post #26

Regarding the multiple human ancestors aspect, here is an diagram of human species or groups if you want to avoid the "what is a species discussion" : https://imgur.com/a/AfrYjqF It is from a recent symposium [1] on human evolution The vertical axis is the age. The horizontal axis represent the geographical spread and the color represents the continent. We can see multiples things: - Disregard the 2010, it is indeed…

is the poster from, or for* the symposium? If it's the later, it'd not be useful without the resulting discussion.
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